I know I haven't posted much. To those who do know about this site and who are redirected here by http://www.emersonsmithdesigns.com/ , my new blog is http://emersonsmtihdesigns.tumblr.com/ and soon I will link my www. address to my new blog so that it will automatically redirect you there. I've found tumblr to be an easier way to blog and plan on publishing a blog post once every day between 9.00 and 10.00 . Thanks for your patience.
-E
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Choice in Modern Video Games
What is the one thing that creates a separation emotionally between the player and the video game? Turning tough decisions into arbitrary "good" and "bad" choices. On the Escapist Magazine there is a show that recently started up called Extra Credits and I urge you to watch it. In one of the episodes, they explain how game mechanics can destroy one of the greatest empowering things in games.
The good vs. bad choice systems (Mass Effect 2, Infamous, etc.) usually boil down to killing things and whether or not you choose the blue or red text options during dialogue.
In Mass Effect 2, there is a point in the game when you are faced with a really tough decision: destroy an entire civilization or brain wash them into agreeing with you. Being put in that situation, many of us would choose death over being programmed to think other than our own personal view of things.
This would have been a tough decision if there wasn't an obvious good or bad system. Unfortunately, brainwashing the civilization gave you Paragon (Good Guy) points and destroying them all gave you Renegade (Evil Dude) points, so I chose the brainwashing based solely on the fact that I wanted Good Guy points.
Heavy Rain, on the other hand, puts you in this situation. A serial killer named the Origami Killer has kidnapped your son. He has maybe six hours left to live. You have been following clues left behind by the killer to save your son. Your latest test: kill someone to save your son. Take a picture of his dead body with your cellphone and send it to the number provided. "If you succeed you will gain your reward".
I arrive at this mans house and knock on the door. He opens it. "Hey, I thought I said no junkies at my door." Oh, I think. He's a drug dealer. Then he grabs a shotgun and chases me through the house. We arrive in his daughter's room. He's out of ammo. I point my gun at him. He pulls out a picture of his two daughters.
Now you have to choose.
Either you take the risk of never seeing your son again and let him live or kill him and get that much closer to saving your son.
This is the kind of decision that breaks a large hole in the fourth wall for the player. If this were a movie, a technique would be used to break the audience from the character. Throughout a bystander story (expressed through a film or book) this technique is used to have a jarring effect on the audience (like the scene in Sweeney Todd when Sweeney kills people that enter his barbershop while singing a love song about his daughter, Johanna) and distance the viewer from the protagonist.
If Heavy Rain had been a movie, Ethan Mars, the father, would have shot the man to make use of this technique. Because video games are interactive, I was able to spare him but had to suffer the consequences later.
Decisions like this are the prime in video games because there is no black and white, right or wrong answer.
What I'm saying is that there is obviously no moral ambiguity--it's the consequential ambiguity that would really get us thinking about the choice instead of whether or not it will get us those awesome evil eyes or change the color of the electricity our character shoots.
In the future as video games develop as a medium, questions like this can challenge us as players and teach us more about who we are. It is my strong hope that as more of my generation and the generation before me get older that video games as a medium will grow and have a larger audience throughout the world and make niche titles like Heavy Rain that explore choices through emotion rather than action will become more popular.
-E
The good vs. bad choice systems (Mass Effect 2, Infamous, etc.) usually boil down to killing things and whether or not you choose the blue or red text options during dialogue.
In Mass Effect 2, there is a point in the game when you are faced with a really tough decision: destroy an entire civilization or brain wash them into agreeing with you. Being put in that situation, many of us would choose death over being programmed to think other than our own personal view of things.
This would have been a tough decision if there wasn't an obvious good or bad system. Unfortunately, brainwashing the civilization gave you Paragon (Good Guy) points and destroying them all gave you Renegade (Evil Dude) points, so I chose the brainwashing based solely on the fact that I wanted Good Guy points.
Heavy Rain, on the other hand, puts you in this situation. A serial killer named the Origami Killer has kidnapped your son. He has maybe six hours left to live. You have been following clues left behind by the killer to save your son. Your latest test: kill someone to save your son. Take a picture of his dead body with your cellphone and send it to the number provided. "If you succeed you will gain your reward".
I arrive at this mans house and knock on the door. He opens it. "Hey, I thought I said no junkies at my door." Oh, I think. He's a drug dealer. Then he grabs a shotgun and chases me through the house. We arrive in his daughter's room. He's out of ammo. I point my gun at him. He pulls out a picture of his two daughters.
Now you have to choose.
Either you take the risk of never seeing your son again and let him live or kill him and get that much closer to saving your son.
This is the kind of decision that breaks a large hole in the fourth wall for the player. If this were a movie, a technique would be used to break the audience from the character. Throughout a bystander story (expressed through a film or book) this technique is used to have a jarring effect on the audience (like the scene in Sweeney Todd when Sweeney kills people that enter his barbershop while singing a love song about his daughter, Johanna) and distance the viewer from the protagonist.
If Heavy Rain had been a movie, Ethan Mars, the father, would have shot the man to make use of this technique. Because video games are interactive, I was able to spare him but had to suffer the consequences later.
Decisions like this are the prime in video games because there is no black and white, right or wrong answer.
What I'm saying is that there is obviously no moral ambiguity--it's the consequential ambiguity that would really get us thinking about the choice instead of whether or not it will get us those awesome evil eyes or change the color of the electricity our character shoots.
In the future as video games develop as a medium, questions like this can challenge us as players and teach us more about who we are. It is my strong hope that as more of my generation and the generation before me get older that video games as a medium will grow and have a larger audience throughout the world and make niche titles like Heavy Rain that explore choices through emotion rather than action will become more popular.
-E
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